Hey guys, I figured this was probably about the best way to make a WIP
thread in the maps forum. Just make sure you don't go rating the map it
is linked to in my profile or anything, seeing as that is just a
workaround.

For those of you who don't get the point of this thread, I'll try and
give a brief explanation. Often I find myself making little rooms or
starts of maps that aren't really going anywhere and I don't know if I
plan to actually use it for a full level. That sometimes puts me off
putting up any media in my profile, as that requires making a new map
profile which is a bit too formal and committing to the level which is
often just a bit of fun. That said, I do sometimes feel like showing
screenshots anyway; as a proof of concept, to gauge feedback, or just
to show off a little " SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif"> This thread is for that purpose. Post any
screenshots in here, of work in whatever engine, that are of work you
feel is too early, too spontaneous, too random, or too conceptual, to
justify a new map profile and thread.

I'll get the ball rolling with a couple of screenshots of a little test
room I built to play around with the HL2 AI. I might be using HL2 as a
base for my honours project on AI so I built this just as something to
play around with the existing system. It's nothing remarkable, just a
fairly generic warehouse room, but I haven't really built anything in
ages so this is the best I got " SRC="images/smiles/icon_wink.gif">

I hope this thread encourages people to share what they are working on,
even if it's just something they built in a few hours for fun, without
the pressures associated with posting a new map in their profile. Have
at it guys!

Nice shots. The benches and the bins change the warehouse look to
something more... Someone at mapcore mentioned that the altered shots
now look like they could be part of a subway system. I could see
that, although I couldn't really see where turnstyles or ticket booths
would fit in " SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

I like the rooms asymmetry, and I really like the warm lights you put near the floor by the shutter.

Nothing livens up a room like having NPCs strolling around -- I like that.

Do you think you'll expand this area? Or will you just work on it until it's "done"?

Well the area at the moment is just something to use as a test area for
the HL2 AI system and my tinkerings with it for my honours project. To
demonstrate my honours project work I'm planning on having one or two
everyday scenes (such as an office, train station, bar, warehouse,
whatever) with NPC's doing their thing. This could evolve into one of
the final scenes, possibly as a subway, possibly as a warehouse, or
maybe it will never get beyond this test area. Who knows " SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

Glad you guys like it anyway, feels good to get back into hammer I must
say. Belgarion, just have a shot at a concept area to play around with
the theme of C17 if you don't want to commit to a full project...and
post the results here for commenting " SRC="images/smiles/icon_wink.gif">

Looks fine to me. Except that the benches and litter bins clash with the warehouse setting of course...

Does this AI stuff has anything to do with your 'background NPC AI' ideas you were talking about a while ago? Since you pointed out most NPC behaviour was fairly simplistic in most games...

I haven't done much mapping recently either, but when a friend of mine bought his own HLDM server I couldn't resist his request to do a map. So I scrounged up some old half-finished maps and put together some style elements using a simple layout I quickly thought up on. In 5 hours I created this:

I haven't finished it completely yet, the gameflow lacks a bit (though overall it's quite fun) so I still want to add a few connections and maybe another combat area, perhaps put in some more time to spice up the looks of it.So, what do you guys think of this? " SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

Texturing looks a bit repetitive - fairly large unbroken expanses of
them in places, particularly the horizontal spans in that last shot.
Maybe if you broke it up with some vertical pillars using a different
texture, or some alcoves exposing a different texture? Even if it was
using the same texture, the additional faces pointing in different
directions would at least have different lighting to the current flat
surface, which would break it up visually.

It would also give you a bit more potential for your light fixtures; at
the moment they strike me as being a bit simple and look awkward since
they are only small objects stuck onto big flat surfaces. If you had
some smaller components to your architecture then you can incorporate
your light fixtures into them somehow (be it part of the base of a
pillar, or shining down into an alcove, or whatever) and they won't
look so out of place. Get some supplementary colours in there too, as
at the moment you seem to be sticking quite rigourously to yellow. I'd
also suggest dropping the overall light level and making the areas
around the lights themselves brighter - most of them don't appear to
have any immediate effect around the fixtures themselves, but just
contribute to the overall brightness. Maybe I'm being over optimistic
with the control HL1's lighting offers though - Source spoils you a bit
with falloff distances and the like " SRC="images/smiles/icon_wink.gif">

Another couple of comments as well. The handrail sections in the last
two shots are hugely long - maybe get some more "structurally
significant" brushwork in at uniform intervals? The wallways out there
could benefit from a trim around the edges too (in HL1, everything
benefits from a trim " SRC="images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif">), and that could probably be worked into the
"structurally significant" handrail portions somehow too " SRC="images/smiles/icon_smile.gif">

Anyway, I'll shut up now - all in all I think the base architecture is
nice (last shot seems very grand in particular) but could use some more
subtle elements and improved lighting.

In answer to your question about the purpose of my map - exactly on the
money. My honours project is to investigate, design and implement an AI
system for background characters to demonstrate social intelligence
(ie. not act like total retards), and I've decided to use HL2 to do so.
HL2's background character AI for non-gameplay issues is pretty much
non-existant, in that all they do is randomly choose and "act busy"
node as placed in the map by hammer and play whatever animation it
tells them to, so it's quite a nice blank slate to work from. Pity
there is all the proper game AI stuff in there to clutter things up and
confuse me no end however!

From my point of view, Snarkpit loads inconsistently. Sometimes it quits totally and I am forced to hit refresh to remind it what it was doing. If an image completes, it loads the next time I visit a thread. Case closed. If Snarkpit fails to continue, the image is incomplete and the image reloads again. If the image is 100k and there are a s**tload of them and they are incomplete, the thread is always loading.

Now, I ask. Is there no solutions other than me crying incessantly or my avoiding threads with numerous images quietly?

I am not exactly sure what you said but, there are a s**tload of thumbnail generators out there that do a wonderful job. Whats the problem uploading two images and using the snarkpit codes to utilize them?

If the thumbnail is a new picture which is significantly less file size: yes. If you use the snarkpit "optimization", NO, it just resizes the image (as far as I can tell), so you're still loading a 100 KB image (or something like that)

Just saying "make a thumbnail" doesn't mean much if you don't realize that resolution and file size aren't a 1:1 ratio to each other.

Anyway, I'll try posting some stuff in the next few weeks. Have a bit of work to get done first.

My point is, people don't use it that way. The only times I've ever seen that used is where people don't make a seperate thumbnail image ... so it just resizes the large ass image to a small resolution.

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